The Landlord Who Stole Christmas

To be quite honest, my hissy fit at the property management company last Friday was a consciously timed decision. My thought was pay up give 30 day move notices, which would put the offending deadbeats on the street (or probably moving) right before Christmas. And in my passive-aggressive Aries head, I was perfectly fine with this arrangement.

I should also state, that Willy, who is my main contact at the property management company, is not the person who has been collecting the rents, but then again, nobody has. But really, but in this case it is not Willy's department that deals with rent collection. So, my scathing conversation with him last week should have been at someone else--though I'm not sure who. Meanwhile, I have now been passed to Ms. Amy. I suspect I was passed to her because, either she was the one taking the partial payments, she drew the short straw or she felt brave enough to deal with me. Or all of the above. I have always liked Ms. Amy best at that company, so that works for me.

Back to my dilemma at hand. I have three tenants--all of them renting the three properties Marty Sunshine and I own without any partners--who seem to feel I am running a homeless shelter. In fact, they repeatedly pay late with no consequence. Of the three tenants, two of them are on month-to-month leases and can be given a 30 day notice at any time to haul their butts somewhere else, hence I waited until last week to stir up trouble.

My first stop in my tirade was to go after the the home (month to month) where the professional football player is living. I was pretty sure his girlfriend didn't want to move herself to an new home during his prime working season. By the way, she paid in full last Friday and has stated paying late will no longer be an issue. My tenant in Fultondale managed to pay a sizable payment this month, and their particular mortgage is the least expensive, so I will work on them in later.

However, Mrs. Martin (who is in a lease), has some zen payment schedule only known to her. Not only does she pay when she wants, she pays what she wants. For example, she was under the mistaken impression November's rent was only $150 and nothing else would be necessary for me to be a happy owner. If this were the first time she had played this game, I might have been sympathetic, but no. Frankly, Buckaroo turned 13 seven weeks ago and our weekly grocery bill has tripled since.

Anyway, Monday I found out Mrs. Martin got the message: pay up or leave. So, she wrote Ms. Amy an e-mail with a sob story. At the end of the very long list of excuses, she said she is more than happy to make payment arrangements by December 5 (a Saturday, mind you) and the rest--and I am not making this up--sometime "after Christmas." Ms. Amy asked if I was ok with this arrangement. Oh yes, lest I forget, Mrs. Martin also said the reason she is normally late is she gets her first paycheck of the month on the 16th. (I'm guessing the particular paycheck this month was only for $150.)

First, I was not ok with this arrangement. There was nothing in her e-mail that said she would pay by December 5, just that she would make arrangements. Second of all, there are a lot of days between "After Christmas 2015" and "After some random Christmas later in life."

After a bit of back and forth, here is what I finally agreed upon. She can pay the entire balance of what is owed to me in back rent by close of business December 4, 2015 (notice I added the year). I will not accept a penny less. Nor will I accept the payment on December 7, 2015 at 8:01 a.m. Legalowl is standing by and ready to evict and garnish her wages on December 7.

Additionally, she is not waiting until sometime after Christmas to pay December's rent. She is not going to go out and spend a bunch of money that is contractually owed to me on do-dads for her grandchildren and friends and then expect me to be understanding. No. She will have December's rent paid in full--along with late fees--by December 17. If she doesn't, please see the last sentence in the above paragraph.

I also told Ms. Amy, "From this point forward, rent will not be accepted if she pays after the fifth of any future month. Nor will it be accepted if it is one penny less than what she owes. No more deals. No more negotiating. This is her one and only chance. Merry Christmas to her."

This apparently was conveyed to Mrs. Martin (though I am sure Ms. Amy was a bit more polite). Mrs. Martin came back and said she would "break her back" to make sure rent was on time from now on. She didn't want to move.